Previous | Next :: Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar : London | December 16, 2006, 12:31 am

While we are on the subject of Buffy...........Here is Buffy the Vampire Slayer as mentioned yesterday..... Sarah Michelle Gellar....... shot a long while back in London ......... this was shot for the Sunday Times (UK) .... when we were getting ready to shoot in the rather awful hotel room that is allocated for the purpose we could hear SMG moaning like crazy to her publicist........ in a room off our main room...... 'I don't want to do this'....... ' I've been here for ages we haven't even gone shopping........ I want to go shopping' The publicist is telling her the UK's Sunday Times Mag is a trend setting prestigious important magazine with reach across Europe....... she would be so very grateful if SMG would do it for her etc etc....... it seemed archetypal mega star spoilt brat behavior....... me and Helena my assistant are cringing thinking its all gonna be terrible..... she finally emerges and then is totally and completely fine....... nice even.........she did stick exactly to our 10 min slot ........ its hard to go that fast......but I quite like this image anyway.....hey...... its not my usual stuff lets face it....... It is by no means reportage but its a tiny hint more reportage than most posed star portraiture........... its not lit at all........ but reflectors are putting enough light back into her face she is in a corner window with net curtains partially covering her and giving a diffuse vibe to the light its shot on 100ASA 35mm Fuji-chrome.

Cheers Jez XX

er.....the site seems to be really playing up today and wont allow me to leave this as a comment below in answer to psycho dude so here it is at the top:

Psycho-dude I know you are just tryin to provoke a rant......Im tryin to resist.....no... a rant is bubbling up.......I love to chop the top off peoples heads.....even reputedly the worlds sexiest.... sure its not conventional wisdom......I used to work with a picture editor who would call tight portraits with the heads chopped off.....'egg cup people'.....the top of the head missing like the top of the egg but having a no 'egg cup people' rule left the publication relatively staid in my view.... chopping off the top of heads can lead to more dynamic composition ......... er ..... sometimes not always......this shot.....conventional wisdom would tell you to leave the elbow in as well.....but that crop across the top and the bottom with the slight angle of the camera......in my view gives you a more dynamic image.......I often shoot tight faces cropped almost across the eyebrows as it were but with even more camera angle.....Im not sure I have any JC rules to impart on my decision making..... but keep the whole head intact is a rule that can be jettisoned in my view..... er...only in photographic composition that is...

Thanks for your question psychoA........cheers Jez XX

PS...sorry if you are having problems with leaving comments.....email them to me on jez@jezblog.com if it is still not fixed.